My publications on non-verbal communication

Christian Martineau is the coauthor of the best-seller ‘Voir Mentir’ edited in 2010 with close to 200 pages. Although the title of the book might indicate that it is a book about lie detection, it is about non-verbal communication but with an objective to give more information of authenticity and lie signs than traditional works on the subject. Some time after, the English version came out: To catch a lie. The author has been working on a third book that will be available within a year.

You would like a tender Click here or compose 514.943.8383 to talk to him directly.

The book and what it covers

‘To catch a lie’ presents the most frequent signs of a person who expresses lies… in fact, when a person lies, that person knows that this is not socially acceptable and that there are possibilities that the truth might be uncovered and that eventually there might be consequences. Of course this type of experience generates a form of stress and the body exposed to such a stress will undoubtedly express it. For a clear understanding, this book has a lexicon, and at the end, the book offers practical exercises to synthesize the knowledge transfer.

Availability

LThis book is available in bookstores. If not, it is available on this website:

Synopsis review

To detect a lie is a part of non-verbal communication. The majority of people associate these behaviours to a lier:

Shifty eyes;

Change of subject, confusing discourse ;

Change in voice pitch;

Head down ;

Flushing ;

Clammy hands.

These behaviours are not always present, as the experienced lier might have learned to master them. What is worse, someone might show one of these behaviours leading us to believe he is lying, when he is simply timid or uneasy. Agitated behaviour, uncertain attitude or hesitation can also translate a simple emotion instead of a lie.

The advent of video gives us a step ahead on the micromovements. These signs, very often unconscious and surreptitious, are present in a lie. This aptitude to detect a lie then demands a specific learning, especially in professions where veracity of one’s words are paramount such as control professions: border officers, inspectors, police officers or professions in the judicial sphere.

Now that we know which items to observe, we should not see a lie everywhere! The problem is to know with exactitude if the person is lying. To validate our observation, we must consider at least 4 more items.

Video provides a better understanding

Thanks to video, we can now confirm our observations of the events’ results.
The analysis of a video can give us up to 19 items per second. It’s enormous! How can we observe so many items in such a short time? Video allows us to see up to 29 images per second (in North America). It is then more easy to come to a conclusion.

This book was written in the intention to help “lies seekers”. Although some non-verbal items might remain unknown, it was not worth the wait to publish this precious document. The experience and practice in non-verbal analysis from the past seven years brought us to this decision.

The moment has not yet presented itself where a variety of experts will be able to confront themselves in the field. This day will come when all will be ready. As for the “lies seekers”, they will not wait. They need concrete tools in the field, immediately. Discovering a lie using the decryption of gestures is always better than a simple intuition which cannot be validated visually or concretely. This is what “people in the field” have told us.

After years of training, we were flabbergasted to observe that people in investigation and security were only receiving a very small portion of the suspicious gestures description and non-verbal behaviours and that they still do not receive anything else for now. The psychologist and expert in non-verbal, Paul Ekman, explains that half of the training material for police officers and polygraphists in the United-States is either incorrect, false or incomplete

The importance, in percentage, of words in communication

Mehrabian shows that the word content only represents 7% of communication! Beside words, 38% of communication is imputable to vocal expression (tone, timbre, and intonation of voice) and 55% to non-verbal communication.

He is the first to translate to numbers the importance of non-verbal language compared to that of the words. These numbers are still today a valid reference in the scientific community. In fact, the interest is not so much in the pourcentages than in the statistical reconnaissance of the importance of non-verbal communication within communication.

Thus, 93% of all interpersonal communication is non-verbal, that is of originating from the body, derived from gestures and voice. To discover, decode and understand the non-verbal communication of your interlocuteur, one must refer to the foundation of body language

The example of the teacher that puts us to sleep…

Let us take the example of a university teacher who speaks for an hour and a half about Newton’s theory. The content is very interesting, but there is no variation in the tone ; thus no change in intonation according to the importance of the speech and furthermore, this person does not move at all!

What would be your level of attention? Not very high, right?

The assets of a good communicator

A good communicator uses these three levels of communication. The words, the voice tone/timbre and gestures. By using this communication, he will stimulate his interlocutor threefold:

With an interesting discourse, the interlocutor will be intellectually stimulated;

With a tone and timbre of voice that will accentuate the importance of the speech, the interlocutor will need to listen carefully to interpret these variations;

• With the complete use of his space, where the gestures will visually stimulate the interlocutor who will have their senses whetted.

Strangely, Hitler was an excellent communicator (in his own way). Unfortunately, the three levels of communication revealed aggressivity, but they were all used. His discourse was raw, his tone of voice very aggressive and his gestures, very rigid and jerky.